and the rights of human beings are not waived by either ignorance or forgetfulness. As for compulsion, however, it requires further detail.

We say: As for emancipation being a right of a human being, this may be conceded, since the slave wishes to be liberated, emancipated, and delivered from bondage. But divorce being a right of a human being? A woman may say, “I do not wish to be divorced,” and weep over divorce, finding it more hateful than anything else. So how can we compel him to do what she dislikes?

For this reason, the sounder view is that whenever we treat divorce and emancipation as oaths, they take the rulings of oaths. How can we treat them as oaths with respect to expiation, yet not treat them as oaths with respect to breaking the oath? This is a contradiction. The correct view, therefore, is that he has not broken his oath—whether in divorce, emancipation, a vow, or an oath by Allah. The author has omitted the latter, but it takes the ruling of an oath. Thus, if he says, “If I wear this garment, then my wife is divorced,” and then wears it forgetfully, he has not broken his oath, and his wife is not divorced.

Likewise, if he says, “If I wear this garment, then my slave is free,” and then wears it forgetfully, the slave is not emancipated. Since we have treated this matter as an oath, it necessarily follows that he does not break his oath through ignorance or forgetfulness. This was the view chosen by Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah, and it is also one reported position from Imam Ahmad. Shaykh al-Islam said: “Those who transmitted this position from Imam Ahmad are equal in number to those who transmitted the view that distinguishes between them,” meaning that the reports from Imam Ahmad on this matter are evenly balanced.

Thus, when a person swears an oath concerning himself, invokes divorce against himself, or invokes emancipation against himself, the established school distinguishes between an oath and divorce